Agaat - Marlene van Niekerk [147]
Heaven knows why one had to take so much trouble over something that in any case is going to waste away to dust in this case to mud because it rained incessantly all year from before June and thereafter. Ma’s headstone collapsed twice & as far as we drove yesterday all the way from Skeiding to Port Beaufort the wild fennel was standing hip height on both sides of the road. A. says it’s hr trademark. If I were she I’d keep my mouth shut about that I warn her. It’s not everybody who likes a taint of liquorice in their cow’s milk. She asks for who is the place in the graveyard between the ounooi & the great-great-grandmother?
Witsand 16 December 1966
Flag-raising & Day of the Covenant on the beach today quite moving such a bright blue windless day at the sea. There is no strand so wild or far away but there is found thy name in majesty. The minister prayed for the new leaders who must lead the nation after Dr Verwoerd was so brutally taken from us by the powers of darkness. Jak says Tsafendas is a communist. I say the poor man is mad who in his senses would dream of stabbing the Prime Minister of South Africa to death with a knife in parliament we’re not that kind of country. Jak says don’t have any illusions this is just the beginning.
A. stands firm as a rock next to Jakkie where he’s frolicking in the little breakers. Three other nursemaids in the shallows this morning where the toddlers are playing. They tuck their gaudy frocks into the elastic of their bloomers so that they won’t get wet—jump and scream when the waves come. They don’t talk to hr. She keeps to one side & and she puts on airs with hr black & white clothes the whole holidays so far there’ve been many opportunities for striking up friendships. Shame A. is alone I say to J. Shouldn’t have said it because that caused another spat. He says she’s got everything a woolly could wish for & it’s better that she keeps herself apart he really doesn’t want hassles with a hobnobbing then next thing you have young goffels climbing in & then she gets that way & then she’s lost to us. I tell him that’s not the point what worries me is that she’s too old & too cold & too high & mighty even to think of young goffels but it’s holiday after all & what does she have of her life as a young girl? Have! Have! J. shouts don’t even start with have she has everything a coon-girl’s heart could desire and furthermore she has Jakkie more than you or I have him or had him or ever will have. Why do you worry about her? Look at him. He doesn’t make any friends either he just tags along with Agaat all the time it’s not normal.
Haven’t really thought about it like that but I suppose J. has a point. Notice that Jakkie gets bored quickly with other children. Even when he’s alone with me. Perfectly subdued but if it carries on for too long he gets the fidgets. The moment Agaat is around he livens up. She always has a joke or a new game. Not that J. ever takes any trouble to help bring up Jakkie but that will probably start now. See he feel-feels him & says where’re your muscles my boy.
17 December ’66 morning
Is J. right? Does A. really ‘have’ Jakkie? I keep an eye where possible but the two of them are sometimes highly mysterious. Always try to listen when she tells him stories. She always begins with the ‘first story’ the 2nd and the 3rd etc. up to the ‘last story’. They say fairy tales can have a strong influence on a child’s mind. There’s the one story that he always wants to hear last of all & of which he never tires & when she changes one word of it he shouts no! no! that’s not how it goes even if he’s already almost asleep. The no-shouting is all I hear of it except